


if you let me

by sleepoverwork



Series: Winterhawk Bingo to go-go [3]
Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Awesome Clint Barton, BDSM, Bathing/Washing, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Has Issues, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Clint Barton Is a Good Bro, Deaf Clint Barton, Dom Clint Barton, Dom/sub Undertones, Gen, Light BDSM, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Protective Clint Barton, Sensual not sexual, Sleepy Cuddles, Snuggles not Struggles, Sub Bucky Barnes, do not copy to another site
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-24
Updated: 2020-04-24
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:35:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23808505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleepoverwork/pseuds/sleepoverwork
Summary: Title taken fromI'll Take Care of You by Joe Bonamassa and Beth Hart.When James can't get a handle on his own storm of emotions, then he goes to Clint. He'll trust Clint,he trusts him, and Clint will help. He helps.WinterHawk Bingo - Long haired Bucky - O3Clint Barton Bingo - Sharing a bed - G5
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Clint Barton, James "Bucky" Barnes/Clint Barton
Series: Winterhawk Bingo to go-go [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1718809
Comments: 10
Kudos: 52
Collections: Clint Barton Bingo, Winterhawk Bingo





	if you let me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rudearrow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rudearrow/gifts).



> This is... self-indulgent and its very personal to me to have healthy non-sexual dom/sub relationships. In general, as an asexual being, I am not huge on sex but I do love sensual and snuggles and touch. This is kinda a little window into my own soul. A take on sex and closeness and taking care of someone you love (in general). Yes, if you want this could be a sexual relationship or pre-WinterHawk ship and feel free to do so if you'd like. Personally I like it being just as it is, it can be confusing to those on the outside but those in the relationship are just fine with it. So I present my Soft Dom!Clint to you for your reading pleasures.
> 
> As usual, this is all thanks to the [best punsexual around](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rudearrow/profile). If you don't know him, you should, cause he's the absolute best. This one is for you cause you inspire me! Thank you for being you ru, I love you with all my existance pala _ru_ o ;)

Most of the time, when James couldn’t get out of his own head, a trip down to the Tower’s targeting range with the endless weapons, all custom built by one Tony Stark, was just what the doctor ordered.

Most days, it was enough to chase away the faceless screams that echoed in his brain.

Most nights, the rhythm of shooting was enough to wash away the tears when they filled him up past what he could swallow down.

Mostly, James found he could gather together all the broken pieces of himself that tugged in every direction and center himself back to James. 

Not Bucky, not Winter, not the Soldier, but a rough combination that had been thrown together and molded into a single existence with time.

On the nights when he’s torn into hopeless patches of himself up, when he’s nothing but a collection of ‘too little, too late’s and ‘never enough’s, well, it's in those moments he’s learned to seek out Clint.

Their timeline of friendship was a mix of horrid puns, dirty jokes, gay chicken, and sore losers (and winners).

In a hurricane of emotions is where Clint finds James. In reality, he’s sitting on the edge of Clint’s once dark grey couch that has had half it’s stuffing replaced with trash bags of beanie babies, right when the man gets home from a month long op at three in the morning. The grey had faded to a mucky tan, and Clint had spent the first three months of owning his dumpster couch learning how to stitch in patches to cover the third of the couch that was all holes. 

The first sign was that James, who was quite used to awful structure support from his seventy years as a mix of HYDRA’s punching bag, lab rat, and personal attack dog, hated Clint’s couch with a passion.

The second, and most obviously sign of James’ distressed state of mind, was his carefully blank expression.

Clint dropped his bow and tac bag with a little thump and went to the kitchen to grab a bag of trail mix and a glass of water to bring over to James.

He makes sure when James’ eyes flicker up to him, Clint is focused on placing both the plate and glass under the Hawkeye coasters Kate-kate made him last year for his birthday on the bamboo coffee table in front of the couch. Once that is settled, he crouches down directly in the line of sight of James’ eyes and studies the other man’s face for a moment.

Dragging his eyes away, he pointingly turns his head between what he brought and his guest.

James snorts softly, taking the hint, and proceeds to alternate between dumping some of the trail mix into his mouth and taking a sip of water to wash it down.

Clint gives him a thumbs-up as he watches the glow of the moon dance down James’ cheekbones, under the constant stubble of his cleft chin, and in between the metal plates that make up his left arm, right to the middle finger he holds out for Clint while drinking his water.

Good naturally, Clint is still grinning as he throws up two birds right back.

“Feeling better” Cint asks, his own voice echoing around the quiet room, it’s only companion is the nearly silent static of his hearing aids. Or maybe that’s just the constant state of his ears. He never really found out. 

James’ eyes’ soften enough that the skin at the corners crinkle. He flicks his thumb around the mostly empty bag, against his pointer finger to sign ‘ _a little bit_ ’ back to Clint.

Smoothly transitioning, Clint signs back ‘l _et’s get you out of your gear_ ’.

James blinks and then looks down at himself with a slight frown, as if he had just noticed he is wearing every piece of his Avenger tactical gear, including being fully stocked with knives and guns.

Clint smiles softly at James when the man looks back up at him.

_Touch okay?_

James huffs as if he’s annoyed but Clint can see his gratitude in the way he loses more tension in his posture. He gives a nod and then, like the little shit he is, makes grabby hands for Clint to lift his supersoldier ass off the couch.

With an eye-roll, Clint helps the fucker up and they walk hand in hand to the bedroom. As soon as they pass the doorway, James stops and drops Clint’s hand suddenly.

_Color?_

_Green_. James swallows around a thought and doesn’t sign anything more even though his hands are trembling slightly at his sides.

Clint reaches slowly to brush the loose strains of James’ hair behind his ear, giving him plenty of time to avoid the touch. When he doesn’t, Clint follows the curve of James’ ear over his jawline to where his neck meets his head, with the barest touch of his knuckles on skin, feeling James relax and tense with the touch.

Cupping James’s face gently, Clint makes sure he has the other man’s attention before he signs _Thank you for trusting me. You’re doing great_ , and watches the affirmation sink in and help still James. After a beat, he follows up with an ask for James to take off the tactical wear Clint is wearing. It’s a task that requires almost no thought process, because of the familiarity of it.

One blink and then James is in motion, efficicately undoing the clasps of Clint’s tactical vest and zipping the middle down so Clint is able to roll his shoulders back and James can slip the vest off.James kneels to untie Clint’s boots and prompts Clint to use his shoulders for balance as he slips the boots of one at a time. After he finishes, he reaches up to the buckles on Clint’s pants and holds Clint steady and he shimmies out of the pants until Clint is wearing nothing but deep purple briefs.

Clint intercepts James' hands when they go for the briefs, and pulls at his wrists lightly for him to get up. James raises a brow but obediently rises.

 _I appreciate your trust_ ,Clint signs, smiling as he steps forward so that their chests bump slightly with each breath and guides James to raise his arms into a ‘T’ stance. James’ ears are red and his eyes keep shifting from Clint, to the wall, to the bed, and back to Clint again.

He gets it though. 

Accepting compliments is hard, especially when you feel you haven’t done anything to earn them. 

Instead of pushing the subject, and overwhelming James in the moment, Clint tucks away the ‘“I’m proud of you” that is lingering in his mind for later. 

For now, his hands roam back to James’ shoulders to knead lightly at the skin peeking out of his tac suit to help the other man relax.

 _May I help you_ , Clint asks, one handed as the other rolls the tip of fabric. When James gives him a nod, he gets to work removing James’ black vibramian-laced jacket, letting his hands smooth out the material. He pauses before reaching for James’ pants but when the other starts to shimmy himself out of the gear, Clint captures both hands, brings them up for a quick kiss on both flesh and metal knuckles, before finishing off the removal of the pants from stupidly well sculpted thighs. Clint is much more careful with James’ gear than his own, besides the bow. Clint has definitely taken more than a few hits to protect that bow.

When he realizes his mind has drifted, he gives his head a mental shake and focuses right back to James who is raising a brow at him, the asshole, like always, is acutely aware of when Clint spaces out. Which is not what is supposed to be happening now. 

_Shut up_. Clint rolls his eyes and reaches out for James to lock hands with him as he turns to flop on the comforter of the bed. James goes down with him, limbs tangled, breathing each other’s air. Clint runs his fingers gently through James’s shoulder-length hair and the other man closes his eyes and relaxes into the touch.

Clint starts humming, he can’t exactly hear himself, just feel the vibrations of it, plus it’s probably horrible off pitch, but when it makes James’s lips twitch up, so he continues following the song however it demands to be hummed. 

His hands eventually start wandering down James’s skull, swirling around his temples, brushing a stray eyelash from his cheekbone, following the curve of his jaw, tiptoeing up to feel the hint of stubble on the corners of his lip from a careless shave, and finally sliding down the columns of his throat to absentmindedly weave patterns in his collarbones.

He feels when James opens his eyes to watch him. He matches the stare and waits. James blinks slowly at him, and Clint bites the inside of his cheek to stop from laughing at the feline characteristics. 

He knows though. He glares and his lips purse in as much of a pout as he ever lets himself.

Clint’s right hand moves to hover over the seam between the remains of James’s shoulder and where his metal arm begins; he doesn’t move his eyes from James’s, and waits.

James smirks, frees his right hand from between himself and the bed to snatch Clint’s left hand and presses a kiss in the center of the palm. Clint smiles, but still waits until James huffs, rolls his eyes and drops Clint's hand to motion _yes, you ass_.

Clint’s laughter bounces around his head, an intrusive thought of how ugly it must sound gets pushed away to be replaced by him pulling his hands back from James to sign.

 _Consent is key_.

He plops a quick kiss on James’s nose and then another on the scar running up his shoulder and up the left side of his neck.

One by one, Clint starts with the scarring on James’s left side and lightly touches the groves and raised skin with his lips.

His fingertips wander off to the other scars. Ones James remembered receiving as Bucky, one’s Sargent Barnes knows to be from the second world war, those from his time as Winter, and all that escape his memory at the moment. 

Clint maps out James’s torso with his hands and trails along the journey with his mouth to press kisses into each scar he finds. When James takes a sharp breath in the middle of his ministrations, he backs off, and asks James for his color.

Only after James takes a few deep breaths does he sign ‘green’ and Clint continues on exploring the story of James’s skin like he’s never read it all before.

Clint eventually gets low enough to press his lips just below James’s navel and then starts to rise to herd them both towards a long overdue bath.

James grabs him as he goes to move and Clint freezes instantly. James’s brown eyes don’t move from Clint’s blue ones as he lets go of his wrist and slips two metal fingers barely in the elastic of Clint’s briefs and gives a slight tug.

There’s a manic energy in James’s eyes, the question falling short of confidence and reading more like fear.

This time Clint doesn’t move James’s hand, instead he follows the movement to bring him face to face with James. He searches the other’s eyes again and when James doesn’t move to pull away or continue, Clint slowly signs his thoughts, doing his best to make clear that anything sexual never has to be on the table. Clint in no way is asking, in no way needs there to be, and everything about them, as they are, is perfectly satisfactory to Clint. 

He lets James stew that over and lets it sink in while rubbing a rude knot that has built up right underneath James’ left shoulder blade.

Clint lets James relax and curl into him, but forces himself to move them before they fall asleep on top of the covers with himself still smelling of adrenaline and grime, as well as what has likely rubbed off onto James.

This time James lets him go, but his face scrunches up when Clint tries to drag his 5’9’’ body of muscle off the bed as he goes.

Clint laughs again, the nagging feeling of it sounding wrong quieter in the face of his happiness. James is doing his best to squirm and stay, and Clint, although taller by half a foot, is fighting a losing battle of being 30 lbs outweighed in muscle mass as well as trying to fight gravity.

They’re both laughing, James’s mouth also moves in pleas to leave him but what Clint doesn’t have in muscle, he has in spaces of sheer determination. Eventually James has to choose between getting yanked onto the floor or get up and follow on, and he stands, pouting again because he can, but linking fingers with Clint as they move to the bathroom.

While the water runs, James sits on the toilet seat and starts falling asleep. Clint isn’t doing much better, leaning against the wall across feeling his own weariness seep in.

He opts for a bath another time, and switches the faucet over to the showerhead as steam begins drifting out of the tub.

Clint and James stand in the spray until they start swaying on their feet. Clint powers through his sleepiness to rub shampoo into the roots of James’s skull, massaging slightly at the base just to feel the vibrations of James’s soft groans. Once the shampoo has rinsed off, Clint finger-combs conditioner he rarely uses himself, into James hair. He starts with just after his scalp and down towards the ends where they reach the dip of the back of his neck. Clint stands just out of the spray so he can move on to the man’s neck, chest, back, and legs while his hair follicles have time to soak in the conditioner. Clint doesn't resist the urges to caress the soft patch of skin at the joint of James’s hip, or run his hands down James’s back, but he keeps them light and quick for both their sakes of getting out.

James’s sudden second wind surprises Clint slightly, and as soon as the conditioner is rinsed, he’s moving to wash Clint’s for him. It requires a little maneuvering with Clint being significantly taller but soon enough Clint is also squeaky-clean and his hair even got its own conditioner time to soften up.

Clint signs for James to stay in the warmth and braves the cold to get a few items.

He changes into pjs, and pops one of his nicer cotton towels into the dryer he rarely uses cause it barely works and then digs into the deepest parts of his drawers to find old, soft, clothes for James to wear: which included Clint’s lucky purple fuzzy socks from Kate, Clint’s favorite sweatpants that was his go-to for a good rest-day, and an old thrift store sweatshirt that was the first thing Clint bought when he decided to turn his life around and become a ‘good guy’.

The second mission of Clint’s is to grab his fluff blanket that Tony gave him four Christmases ago that probably cost as much as the upfront for his apartment.

With the pjs and blanket in hand, Clint snatches the semi-warm towel and goes back to James, who gives a sleepy pleased smile when he sees him.

James' mouth opens in what Clint assumes is a gasp when he feels the towel, but he throws it over Clint's head and dries his hair off first before using the towel himself.

Now dry, warm, and very much ready for bed, they make quick work of brushing their teeth and flossing - made easier with James having an extra toothbrush he keeps at Clints - and hurry to the bed.

Clint strips the comforter because they’re clean now, and leaves it on the ground to clean up tomorrow. That’s a later-Clint issue. Tonight, Clint snuggles into the toasty body next to him and lets James’ steady heartbeat as his breaths turn into soft snores, lull him to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading and I wish you and your loved ones the best friendos! As usual, you can find me on [tumblr](https://letsallsleepoverwork.tumblr.com/), discord (letsallsleepoverwork), snooping around ao3 reading fic, or stuck in my own daydreams pretending I'm cooler than I am B)


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